Shadow Dancer

A far cry from Shinobi... It used the same engine as Last Battle, which sucks; the player moves like an 80 years old and controls are terrible, with slow jumps that won't certainly save you from the fast objects thrown at you and aggressive enemies, who also respawn. The dog acts stupid and it's worthless most of the time. The original arcade was already tough and frustrating but this one borders on the impossible. Background graphics were alright, sprites are blocky and look silly though. I normally don't compare C64 games to other systems, but if you look at the Amiga version (almost 1:1 with the arcade) and even the excellent Spectrum one, you realize they really fukked it up with this one. Big disappointment.

Very nice game completely ruined: lack of health bar, no checkpoints, one hit dead, places where you are forced to use magic and magic will not refill after dead - no magic and you are doomed. Ninjas, which keep coming back straight after their dead makes this game utterly impossible. I don't like games which hates the player and C64 port of Shadow Dancer is a very good example. Play arcade version instead!

Respawning enemies, no health, one hit and you're dead.

Change these two things and it would've been a killer game.

6/10

Graphics are nice & bright anyway... Gameplay did little for me though. Pretty dull stuff.

Not an unforgettable conversion but with its moments. Gameplay is discreet, some respawn problems, bad effects, graphics sometimes good sometimes less.

I got this 4 the Amiga and its fairly good its like shinobi which was brill thats why I rate this at 7

No no no no !! This game suffers comparison to others like Shinobi for example...
C64 could do much better than Shandow Dancer in the early 90's...
A fast and crap adaptation

A nice enough conversion although I thought the ninja moved a bit sluggishly at times. Still, a nice shooter platformer all round.

This was one of the last great C64 games I had back before switching to the Amiga (yeah, I was a late adapter). While the enemy waves are a bit different then they were on the arcade, this has all the feel and function of the arcade game, with the added (albeit unintentional) benefit that the smaller sprites gives you more screen space, letting you actually react to a lot of enemies instead of just memorizing their appearance patterns as was necessary in the arcade version.
Practice and strategic use of the magic spells really add the extra depth to this game. PLAY IT!!

What is Swissjack talking about ? Has he ever played the game ? Spectrum graphics ? What a load of crap; this game has great graphics, colourful, detailed, varied, along with parallax effects, neat intro screens and an animated ending sequence. As for the game being hard, well, it needs some practice you know. I managed to complete it. Great fun platform shoot-em-up. Man, it's so dissapointing seeing people comment on games they only played for 5 minutes or something, Do some proper playtesting people.

PS - Oh, and the dog can be very helpful on later levels..

The sequel to Shinobi! I don't think that this is a good conversion of the arcade-machine. The graphics look like Spectrum and its damn hard to play! For me it was a deception. I'm looking for another sequel! 6/10

Yeah, the dog helps out. It's been a while since I've played it, so I can't remember what key it is (space or hold down fire, maybe), but you can get him to go ahead and chew on baddies for you. Oh, and great game, BTW!

Ill played this game not until recently for the first time under an emulator. The dog doesn't seem like much use, does he help you out of just follows you around?

A brilliant conversion of the brilliant arcade game!